Movement Disorders Flashcards
What is essential tremor?
Essential tremor is a common, slowly progressive movement disorder that usually affects the hands and forearms, in which tremors occur at rest, during active movements, and postural lay. The tremor also commonly affects the head and neck or the voice. The amplitude of the tremor and the disability it causes vary widely. Some evidence suggests that the disease, once though to be a benign movement disorder, may also eventually be associated with indolent, widespread neurons have oral or psychiatric deterioration.
CAUSES: Although the disease often appears sporadically, in some patients it appears to be dominantly inherited. Patients with essential tremor have cerebella’s atrophy compared to normal control patients when studied with neuroimaging techniques.
TREATMENT: Medications like propranolol (a beta-blocker), clonidine (a centrally acting alpha blocer(, or primidone (an anticonvulsant) reduce tremors by about half but do not cure them. Medications for Parkinson disease are ineffective.
